Sunday, May 25, 2008

String Quilting (Primers and Patterns!)

In honor of this Memorial Day weekend, I am expressing my hope for freedom and peace, with liberated string quilting. I have always believed that each of us is connected by energetic and spiritual heartstrings and that those heartstrings stretch and reach between each and everyone we love or have loved, whether living in this physical dimension or not.

My belief is that any kind of quilt made with strips and strings... of any kind, represents the heartstrings between myself, as the quilter, and those I then give the quilts to. I have always loved piecing with strips and strings and with heart-felt and love-filled patchwork!

I joined in the fun of creating my own patriotic quilts using the liberated string quilting that goes back in time to many of the earliest quilters and brought into more modern times by such quilters as Gwen Marston and Evalyn Sloppy.

My own patriotic quilts have been primarily donated to wounded veterans at Madigan Army Hospital in Washington state, the Veteran's Hospital in Portland, Oregon and to the Salem Veteran's Outreach Center, here in Salem, Oregon.

My patriotic strings are the most popular and have been overwhelming loved and well-received. But I do love string quilting of any kind and have made a number of string quilts in a lot of variations!

String quilting, whether done straight across, or on the diagonal, is simply the sewing down of a variety of strings, or strips of alternating fabrics of many colors into blocks. Diagonal strings have a tendency to stretch on the bias, so underlying foundation blocks are more essential for them, but not required in simple straight piecing.

By simply cutting foundation blocks out of scrap fabric, one can add strips and pieces of varying sizes, piece by piece until the block is 'all filled up.' To create a pattern in the final quilt top, I am using blue for the first center strip. But any repetitive color can be used as an anchoring strip.

1. To begin, I used a 10" foundation pieces and a variety of cut strips of many colors. Others prefer blocks as small as 6" or as large as 12 1/2"...the choice is yours. Larger blocks multiply spatially a lot quicker! Lay down a center strip of any color, diagonally across the foundation piece. (I iron a fold into the center of both the foundation block and this first string piece for matching the two pieces' center alignment.)

2. Sew down the second strip, right sides together.

3. And the third...

4. and the fourth....

Pressing each strip flat after each one has been added in to your string quilting block!

5. When strips fill the foundation block, iron flat, then align and trim to size desired.

perfect
for post surgery for either cardiac or breast cancer patients, hugging a
pillow over the heart after cardiac surgery or under the arm after
breast surgery have been shown to help significantly with post-operative
pain.